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This contribution presents a series of artistic practices that reflect different aspects of indigenous placemaking. Common among several indigenous cultures is a relationship to land based on principles of reciprocity, where giving and taking is a mutually beneficial practice. This challenges many Western cultures’ tendency to mainly consider land from a utilitarian perspective, prioritising extraction for shorter-term economic gains over more long-lasting values like connection, co-habitation and co-existence. Centring indigenous research, the aim of the panel was to examine the intricacies of placemaking based on principles of relationality and reciprocity. How can we re-think our relationship to land through the practices of art, design and architecture?

To respond to this question, artist and researcher Lisa Nyberg invited Sandi Hilal, a Palestinian architect, for her commitment to indigenous resilience and the displaced, and her question on how to host on hostile lands; Geir Tore Holm for his experience as a Sámi farmer, teacher and artist, to share how to create community through food and storytelling; Katarina Pirak Sikku, Sámi artist, to share her research on the horizon of grief, and her intentions to write herself into the landscape; and Marit-Shirin Carolasdotter, dancer and choreographer with Sámi and Kurdish heritage, because of her knowledge of the body and the land through her research project “Humans and Soil”. Nyberg hosted the panel as the firekeeper.